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THE VILLAGE NEWS
31 March 2021
Time for The Village NEWS team to take a break
FROM THE EDITOR
We all know the saying: It never rains but it pours. Along with almost every other business in Hermanus, The Village NEWS has been hard hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. A year ago we thought it would mean a bit of temporary hardship, which we were confident we could overcome.
face reality.
a newspaper every week.
Cutting costs became essential to our survival, and it was with great sadness that we not only had to give up our lovely offices but also had to see our robust team of 16 dwindle to a core group of only eight individuals.
That’s a lot of pressure for mere mortals, some of us not that young any more, to endure, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that some of us have succumbed to ill health.
However, as the pandemic dragged on and on and it eventually became clear that it was not going away any time soon, but would continue to present a threat in the form of repeated waves and lockdowns, we had to
Losing loyal, hard-working and beloved colleagues and the camaraderie that comes with working together from one office was a bitter pill to swallow. Of our team of eight people, a mere five are currently working full-time on producing
break so that we can recover fully and return to the job we love so much with renewed energy and enthusiasm. We owe that much not only to ourselves but also to our loyal readers and advertisers. We want to be able to continue bringing you only the best, and it is for this reason that we have decided to take our usual two-week winter break a little earlier this year. But don’t despair – we’ll be back again in time for our 21 April issue of your weekly Village NEWS. This is the good NEWS – Ed
That it all had to happen at more or less the same time is of course testament to the wellknown sentiment expressed in my opening sentence. If you are looking at a team of five and three of them are experiencing serious health problems, it is clearly time to grant ourselves a
Phuket or Bangkok? Marco NEWS manoeuvres east THE VILLAGE
Sultan’s personal valet had its perks.
De Waal Steyn
PUBLISHING EDITOR
The two-month voyage across the Indian Ocean was spent in relative luxury, so Marco soon settled into the dhow’s bump-and-grind and the Sultan’s wishes and whims, and often bent over backwards to fit in. The trip however, was educational in more ways than one.
Hedda Mittner
CONTENT EDITOR T: 083 645 3928
E: hedda@thevillagenews.co.za Taylum Meyer PRODUCTION MANAGER, PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGN T: 084 564 0779
E: taylum@thevillagenews.co.za
Charé van der Walt MARKETING & SALES MANAGER T: 082 430 1974
E: chare@thevillagenews.co.za
Elaine Davie
JOURNALIST T: 084 343 7500
E: elaine@thevillagenews.co.za
ADMINISTRATION & SOCIAL MEDIA
E: barbara@thevillagenews.co.za
QUERIES & FINANCE
E: admin@thevillagenews.co.za
By Murray Stewart murray.stewart49@gmail.com
T
his being the last edition of the month, we continue with the highs and lows of Marco Polo’s journey to the Far East to find Pa and Kubla Cohen in Xanadu. Grateful to have scored a free ride with the Sultan’s fleet, we left Marco last month as he happily knuckled down and high-tailed it eastward via Sumatra. The last time Marco sailed on a dhow he was a slave in shackles, bound for the spice island of Zanzibar. This time things were somewhat different though. He was now ensconced in the flagship of the Zanzibari Navy and, being what can be modestly described as the
He was taught how to play chess by the Sultan, whose priceless, hand-carved set had green jade pieces for Saladin’s army against the pale ivory of the Infidel. Marco soon learned to lose graciously. He was also taught to navigate by the stars, prepare oriental cuisine, and how to curse fluently in Arabic, Swahili and Tagalog. (Always useful.) As in some previous encounters, details of what actually happened during the eight-week trip are virtually non-existent, but suffice it to say, the Sultan’s lookout eventually spotted the northern tip of Sumatra – much to Marco’s relief. He had a feeling in the bowels of his heart that the Sultan was tiring of him, and realised that unless he plotted an escape, he might well be peddled off to some sweaty pimp and end up as a ‘lady-man’ in Bangkok. He was told by Napoleon, the oneeyed French/Arabic/Italian translator
on board, that Indonesia had over 17 500 islands – ‘an unfinished mosaic of emeralds scattered haphazardly across Allah’s oriental ocean’ was his rather flamboyant Arabic back-translation. Marco wondered how many he’d have to explore before he found Pa and Kubla Cohen, and was Xanadu an island in the first place? For the next leg of the journey, things become clearer. Thanks to the Dutch and Portuguese traders in the region, anecdotes and tales were recorded – albeit in bits and pieces. But we do know that Marco, our enterprising young whipper-snapper had a plan up his sleeve – or down his pants, actually. Before docking in Medan, he snuck into the Sultan’s cabin and grabbed a handful of gold coins from the treasure chest under his bed. They were his ticket to freedom, and he intended to be long gone before he or they were missed. He stuffed them down into the make-shift jockstrap he’d created, and prayed they wouldn’t jingle when he walked. Teeth and buns clenched in nervous anticipation, he counted down the minutes until they docked. Fortunately, the harbour was chaotic, with people rushing and yelling in all directions at once. Once their entourage hit terra firma, he saw his
chance and shot off like poo from a goose. With just his vuvuzela and a gold-laden nether region to his name, he ducked and dived through the throng, and despite clinking constantly, he finally unshackled himself from the Sultan’s clutches for ever. Although he wasn’t the only paleskinned bloke around, he headed straight for the nearest tailor and got kitted out like the locals, to blend seamlessly into the surrounding sartorial wallpaper. The contents of his jockstrap proved invaluable in greasing a few palms along the way, and pretty soon he was back on the high seas, north-bound towards a fishing port in Siam in the Andaman Sea. Phuket, he was told, was a commercial hub with trade routes leading both west to India and east to China – so where better to start? The vuvuzela presented to him by King Shaka as a talisman proved somewhat serendipitous, because he was told that the famous Silk Road was just to the north, and a right turn at the T-junction would lead straight to the land of bamboo and tea. Will the glitter of gold still help him find it? We have no idea – we’re currently battling to back-translate anecdotes from various Malayan dialects, so stay tuned…
FORECASTS: HERMANUS, OVERBERG
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LEGEND / KEY
Wed | 31 Mar
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Sat | 3 Apr
Sun | 4 Apr
Mon | 5 Apr
Tue | 6 Apr
Wind
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We are taking a two week break and will be back soon.
De Bos Dam 86.01% Last week N/A
The next edition of The Village NEWS will be out on 21 April 2021.
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